FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  
t there must be in the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe. I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber--no! In delirium--no! In a swoon--no! In death--no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, existence. It seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is--what? How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage, are not, at will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower--is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention. Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been brief, very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness. These shadows o
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
impressions
 

swooned

 

dreamed

 

shadows

 

remember

 
nothingness
 
wildly
 

familiar

 
palaces
 

strange


thought

 

unconsciousness

 
ponders
 

visions

 
floating
 

beholds

 
gently
 
termed
 

recalled

 

distinguish


interval

 

marvel

 

unbidden

 

stealthily

 

perfume

 

lapsed

 

moments

 

earnest

 

struggles

 

regather


success

 
reason
 

assures

 

remembrances

 

periods

 
conjured
 

endeavors

 
bewildered
 

meaning

 
flower

musical
 

cadence

 
frequent
 
thoughtful
 

attention

 

condition

 
arrested
 

reference

 
deepest
 

slumber